Passive Intermodulation in PCBs for 5G Systems 5G networks are coming. Are your PCBs ready? Anyone pays attention to the top bar on their phone has noticed the 4G indicator. If you use a major wireless carrier in the U.S., you’ll likely see 5G in the top bar once you buy your next smartphone. 5G systems designers, especially PCB designers, will need to work with higher frequencies, faster data rates, lower power budgets, and plenty of other performance requirements. Nonlinearity will also Read Article Clearing Up Trace Impedance Calculators and Formulas While it might not be obvious to the casual or to those who think the mathematics underlying PCB design is largely settled, there is plenty of disagreement regarding the right formula to calculate trace impedance. This disagreement extends to online trace impedance calculators, and designers should make themselves aware of the limitations of these tools. The Problem with a Trace Impedance Calculator If you use your favorite search engine to find Read Article Budgetary Quote Early in the Design Process New products that will be produced in high volumes always start with a prototype, and multiple boards will end up being built throughout the product design and development process. Costs involved have to be scrutinized along the way and at each stage in prototyping, and one way to do this is to request a budgetary quote for your design. Budgetary quotes provide an estimate for procuring the PCB, assembly services, and the parts in the assembly Read Article Benchmarking Practices and Process for PCB Designers Benchmarking is a company-wide process for analyzing company performance against industry leaders. Companies use it to better understand how their top products perform and allows them to develop plans to improve or adapt specific technologies or practices. Benchmarking uses a set of metrics to measure performance, such as cost per unit of measure, productivity per unit of measure, cycle time of x per unit of measure or defects per unit of measure Read Article Why PCB Data Management is Important Recently, I celebrated a birthday. Although I do not want to give away my age, let us say I can easily order from any senior menu in a restaurant. I realize the older I get that either I am slowing down or things are speeding up. I concluded it was a bit of both, but much more of the latter. In the words of Charles Dickens in the literary classic A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times it was the worst of times.” Those in the electronics Read Article PCB Designers Motivated by Data Quality When you look at the many steps involved with a single PCB design, it is easy to get lost in those details. Figuring out our next steps is often overwhelming. When that happens to me, after taking a deep breath, I repeat a common phrase that has become my professional mantra. “Eat the Elephant.” The old riddle is, how do you eat the elephant? Answer: One bite at a time. It is a skill to take a massive project and break it down to its parts Read Article PCB Library Standardization: How to Build a Clean and Consistent PCB Data Library Judy Warner: Cherie, before we get started, please take a moment to define what a “library” is and what the full scope of that entails. Cherie Litson: Most of us would define a “library” as a consistent file of symbols and a consistent file of footprints (decals, land-patterns, etc.) connected with some form of a database. You don’t even need to have the database, just a good schematic symbol file and a footprint file and a method to link them Read Article Dk Values And How Datasheets Impact Your Design In this OnTrack episode we'll talk about Dielectric constant (Dk) and the difference between Design Dk & Process Dk. How datasheets can be confusing and can impact your design? Listen in for more. Read Article PCB Signals: Key Elements of High-Speed PCB Design Understanding the Challenge How Long is too Long? Matching the Impedances Where does the Return Energy Flow? Differential Pairs What about Vias? Crosstalk Dancing in Time The Board The Materials The Layers Possible Layer Stackups Understanding the Challenge The purpose of this article is to introduce the key elements of high-speed design and then discuss how each of those elements is tackled in Altium Designer. This article does not attempt to Read Article Intro to High-Speed Design TOPICS IN THIS SOLUTION Complicated PCB Design for High-Speed Applications High-Speed Constraints Are Used in Every Phase of the Design Process Analyzing the Design for Consistent Operation that Meets Specification You’re creating products that are made for the present day, which means moving past traditional PCB technology and design techniques. It takes more than innovation to perform these tasks well - how do you create high-speed interfaces Read Article What is PCB Data Management? Successful design and manufacture of any PCB requires managing data. Every PCB project includes a ton of data on the components, front-end schematics, the physical layout, and manufacturing files. There is other documentation that may be needed that is not captured in your PCB design software. This all has to be tracked and managed by the designer because working with incomplete or out-of-date data will result in a design that doesn't perform as Read Article PDS Design For Ultra-low Power Implementations When it comes to low power implementations, products are characterized as very rarely having high current options, being small in size, being optimized for power management and having the necessity for batteries to last as long as possible. There’s a broad spectrum of products that fall under these criteria including, but not limited to, smartphones, smartwatches, remote monitoring devices and medical devices to name a few. In terms of PDS design Read Article Power Play—Successfully Designing Power Delivery Systems Across the industry, the design element that continues to cause the most problems is the power delivery system (PDS). And, as a consulting firm, for the last several years the majority of problems that we have been called in to solve have always centered on PDS problems. As noted in my previous blog on guard traces and their ineffectiveness, every time we have been called upon to solve an EMI problem, we have always ended up fixing the PDS. This Read Article Meshing Design with Electronics Assembly and Flux Cleaning PCBAs require flux cleaning during assembly, as well as other cleaning steps to remove other soils. Read this blog by expert Barbara Kanegsberg to learn more about cleaning processes. Read Article The Art of Selecting Connectors Connectors are the unsung stars of both a product and its hardware development. Any Apple user knows the romantic tale the company has spun from infatuation with the first magnetic power connector through the betrayal of the 3.5mm jack to today’s ‘it’s complicated’ status thanks to the baggage their dongles create in pursuit of beauty. Product developers have similar emotional experiences with their prototypes. An unreliable connector that has Read Article Embedded Software Is Everywhere: Potential Implications The amount of smart, connected products is increasing faster than ever. It was only very recently that IoT technology jumped from our phones and computers to our refrigerators, our lighting systems, and our vacuum cleaners. It's starting to seem like nothing is excluded from this extensive digital overhaul. In 2016, the smart home market was worth about $24 billion. By 2022, it's expected to reach $53 billion. Smart homes and robots are no longer Read Article Weekly Digest: Documentation, Datasheets and Reliability In this article, we’re rounding up and collecting everything we’ve published this week for your weekend reading. Articles from PCB Design Experts For people who like to read there’s never a shortage of informative articles on the PCB Design Blog. Click to read new articles and while you’re there please leave a comment with questions or feedback. How to 'GIT' Collaborative with Altium - by Ari Mahpour PCIe BGA Fanouts and Escape Routing - by Zach Read Article Pagination First page « First Previous page ‹‹ Page109 Current page110 Page111 Page112 Page113 Page114 Next page ›› Last page Last » Load More
